Celebrate Your Race and Culture.

What?: In society, race has always been an uncomfortable topic to talk about. Maybe a reason why people choose to be so closed minded when discussing race and racism is that they don’t know how to express their understanding of the topic. As Glenn E. Singleton and Cyndie Hays say in their chapter “Beginning Courageous Conversations about Race” we need to expect to feel discomfort when talking about a sensitive subject. They also state that we must be willing to move past the discomfort and work towards staying engaged, speaking the truth, and expect and accept a lack of closure (Singleton & Hays, 18–21). The author, Pollock wants the audience to understand or at least examine why it is important to address racism at a societal level and not just as an individual attitude.

At the start of the book, Defining Everyday Antiracism, she states that, “We collectively define “racism” as any act that, even unwittingly, tolerates, accepts, or reinforces racially unequal opportunities for children to learn and thrive; allows racial inequalities in opportunity as if they are normal and acceptable; or treats people of color as less worthy or less complex than “white” people” (Pollock, xvii). Personally, I agree with her definition of racism, but I think that there is more to her definition than meets the eye. From what I understood from her definition is that race and racism only exists because these concepts were socially constructed by humans. Alan Goodman, also agrees that, “….”races” are the products of history and social life, not biologically determined” (Goodman, 4) Therefore, there is real consequence in the world that affect all individuals due to the concepts of race and racism existing. Although, I don’t feel like that was Pollock’s main reason as to why it is important to address racism.

I believe that she wanted to express how racism is affecting everyone, and how we all can as a society can take few steps to eliminate racism and work towards accepting everyone for who they are. Pollock says that, “… everyday antiracism requires both addressing people’s experiences in the world as racial group members and refusing to distort people’s experiences, thoughts, or abilities by seeing them only or falsely through a racial lens” (Pollock, xix). In conclusion, Pollock and the other authors that contributed to this book want to really emphasize on the point that everyone needs to be a part of addressing the larger problem of racism, because our communities suffer when we are segregated by races.

So What?” When I hear the word “culture,” I immediately imagine a person telling me about their cultural traditions or about the customary within their community. I have always assumed that the term “culture” was used in a positive way, because I have only heard that term being applied when one is telling about the good aspects of their identity. However, I have discovered through Ladson- Billings’s piece that many educators use the term “culture” in education in a negative way. In the article, It’s Not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture: The Problem with Teacher Education, Ladson- Billing makes it a point to say there is a problem with the way that many educators use the term. She says that, “…culture is randomly and regularly used to explain everything. So at the same moment teacher education students learn nothing about culture, they use it with authority as one of the primary explanations for everything from school failure to problems with behavior management and discipline” (Ladson-Billings, 104). Essentially, she is saying that the term “culture” used by educators creates excuses as to why people of color or minority are not thriving or excelling at school.

From personal experience throughout my education, I have witnessed a couple of my middle and high school teachers blame a student’s “culture” as a primary reason as to why they are falling behind. I feel that, just as Ladson-Billings states that, “whenever students seem not to be able to explain or identify with students, they point to students’ culture as the culprit” (Ladson-Billings, 105). I feel that educators can’t pinpoint the exact cause of why the child is falling behind. Therefore, they resort to unintentionally using “culture” to answer an unknown cause. However, that shouldn’t be what educators result to if they can’t figure out the root causes of that child’s problem. Instead, educators specifically should come to understand how, “individual, family, community, school, and societal factors interact to create school failure for some students” (Ladson-Billings, 106).

Now What?: At Young Moms Marin, the mothers celebrate their diversity by speaking their native tongue to their children and celebrate holidays that are a part of their culture (i.e. Christmas, and Easter). The moms don’t celebrate in the traditional ways that Americans would celebrate for these holidays. Instead they put a Hispanic and Latino twist to adapt the holiday to their culture. An example of when the moms have done was for Teresa’s birthday. The moms sang happy birthday to Teresa in English first, and then in Spanish with “cha cha cha” incorporated to showcase their uniqueness and diversity. I believe that this is an example of an anti-racist act, because the moms were not intentionally being racist when singing in Spanish. In fact, nothing about what they did was racist, they simply were celebrating their diversity and culture in a new way!

To be completely honest, I am not sure how I would respond back if someone makes a racialized comment or tries to start a conversation about race at your community partner site, because I feel that isn’t really a problem at Young Moms Marin. Everyone at the site embraces their ethnicity and respects all other races that are a part of the group. For example, even though the group is primarily Latino women, there is one black woman who has joined the group, and no one there has made any racialized comments about her. However, now thinking about it, when I first joined the group I remember one mom who was white, asking some of the other Latino mothers what race the babies’ fathers were and vice versa. Other than that I can’t recall any other incident where the moms started a conversation about race while at the site. I think that one of the reason why these moms are so accepting of moms of colors is because Teresa encouraged the girls to, “celebrate diversity!” “pursue equity!” “[and] don’t be colorblind”’ (Pollock, 24)!